Wednesday, December 29, 2010

I'd like to say that this year has been one to remember but the truth is that when all is said and done and I'm drooling on my shoes in a nursing home it probably will rate somewhere between a cold/rainy half marathon and my first time with "Susan Charmers". Not telling which was more memorable but enough to say my High School girlfriend didn't live up to either her first or family names!

Yes, it's been a bit of a shocker. My Dad died in the first half of the year and later on that year on a trip to Australia I discovered that not everybody agreed with the old axiom: "Sons should always out live their fathers!"

In the running arena I reached and maintained a plateau that had me looking longingly at the podium like a three legged Lama would look at Mt. Everest!

Anyway let's just call it a "base building" year and I'll push on to 2011 with "expectation and hope!"

The same "expectation" I had when I finally got "Susan" alone. And the "hope" that the New Year turns out a whole lot better ;)

Tuesday, December 28, 2010

It was announced that there would be an official press conference on Monday January 24th at 4:00pm. There they will detail the marathon course which has been decided, as from a few days ago, and discuss the participation (hopefully have some maps I can upload here and details on how they are going to select the runners).

I'll let you know as I hear things. They had a virtual map on the TV tonight which ran through the full course. I'll try to get hold of that. But no complaints it looks fast and covers just about all the things you'd want to see while you're here!

Saturday, December 25, 2010

Guess what Santa brought me? Not the Garmin I wanted but the next best thing, a walking measuring stick, a digital one none the less!

Actually got it a few days before Xmas and have been out around my neighborhood marking out my courses. Now thanks to my new toy and a can of cheap spray paint I've got some, local, run from my house, 3K and 5K loops that I can use to accurately run to my schedule keeping the right distance, pace and heart rate.

While I did sort of know how long these local runs were I strangely enough, or not, had (after measuring) them at about a meter or two shorter per K than I thought. And while I'm glad I have these sorted I'm now deathly afraid to take a ruler to the old fella lest it be similarly short of my imagined size!

Anyway, somethings are best left unmeasured, with some wiggle room, so to speak ;)

Next week I'll be giving a measure of types to the year that has been and assessing it on its merits. Doesn't seem like it's going to get more than a B+ but there are still a few days left so to God and the Devil, if you're paying attention this grade is still up for change, you can fight for it!!!

Sunday, December 19, 2010

Did a 10K cross-country race today. "The Kishiwada Cross Country 10K" my first since starting running as a Master. It was a Beautiful day, couldn't buy a cloud,about 14 degrees and windless. Perfect conditions!

I think I stared a bit too fast as I was hurting about the 4th K but just hung in and came good after about the 6K mark. It was run mostly on a sealed road that wound itself around a big public park and although it was pretty hilly compared to what I usually race it wasn't a slow course. Anyway by the 5th K I was 15th place the last in the lead group and stayed there until the end, finishing the open placings in 4th place. Actually during the race I thought I was going to get in under 36:00 mins but in the last K they had us going up a hill that put an end to that!

Anyway, not too worried as I'm still heading it the right direction and I have another 10K race on the flat on January 9th. If I don't PB there or go close I'll be worried but now I'm fine with things as they are. I'll Just keep repeating "Let the pace come, let the pace come."

Tuesday, December 14, 2010

Yes, and "Don't forget the basics" will be the theme of my next blog post on how we can lose sight of the obvious things while searching through all that's been written on the pros and cons of getting faster.

I've got a 10K cross-country race to run this coming Sunday and looking forward to it. It will be the first test of how my training is going. I feel good, much fitter than I was the last two races I've ran, and I'm looking for a good time.

Not sure I can PB as I've never run this course and I don't know how much "X-Country" is involved but I suspect it's not much and it'll be a pretty fast course. Luckily it'll be dry too so no sloshing around like you see in Rick's X-country races.

Even though I reckon I can run a good race these lesser distances always make me nervous. First of all, the 10Ks and 5Ks here are often dominated by High School kids who participate in high percentages. It's always a bit intimidating looking down the line and seeing nothing but guys half your age grinning at you like a cat would a canary.

Also I always tend to get caught up in the challenge, going out too fast with the kids. I end up dragging my sorry self home with the stitch from hell.

Anyway if I can keep my head for the first few Ks I should be able to make a charge from behind. I've been running well lately and just the other day I got this rush of blood at the end of one of my recovery runs and ran flat-out for 5 minutes, I was able to hold a pace and go a distance that sort of frightened me ;) I thought at the time, "Geez that Scott, he's getting good!" And you know that anyone who refers to themselves in the third person has got to be a bit dangerous, one way or another.

Thursday, December 09, 2010

Been a few days since I posted but never fear I'm not languishing in a English prison. That is the other Aussie guy with big balls ;)

I know it isn't only me, it's fascinating all the happenings surrounding Julian Assange, isn't it? In solidarity with Wikileaks, as I'm more afraid of spam and hackers than any of the world's governments, I'm going to do a bit of running related leaking on this site from time to time ;)

The first bombshell: Sources tell me that Rick from "Rick's Running - No Limit Desperado" fame is considering retiring opening a small barber shop in the Rockies and renaming his blog "Rick's Cut House - Yes Trim it, Colorado"

And another shocking revelation..... Ewen hasn't been seeing any "Doctor" The story he has been giving us about seeing a blood Doctor at Two Hundred and Fifty Dollars for 15 minutes is obviously a lie! I mean our friend isn't known for throwing that or any kind of money around. I want to believe but him but I'll need evidence of some monetary transactions on his part. Does anyone have a photo of him wearing anything other than that freebie "6ft Track Marathon" T-shirt?

Friday, December 03, 2010

As I've already mentioned I've started my training in earnest for a goal marathon (The Nagano Marathon April 17th 2011). I won't start on the program proper until January 3rd but have been doing the lead up weeks, introductory weeks 1 to 3 in rotation. I'm just getting used to the type of running they expect, at the different levels I'm suposed to run the sessions in.

The above are the different pace and heart rates I'm to run for a maximum heart rate of 170bpm and a marathon goal time of sub 2:45:00. I'm doing 2 to 3 sessions in the higher levels and the rest of the week at a Cruisey level 1 effort.

It's taken me a few weeks to get used to this but now I can get pretty close to what they ask on all my runs. Found it a little hard to hold the heart rate down at the effort 1 pace at first but the fitter I get....Midweek I was able to keep my HR in the low 120s and run a pace of 4:20, which I've got to be happy with at this stage of my training.

As stated, the above rates are what is recommended to train at to run a sub 2:45:00 marathon, if I want to go any faster I can run the sessions a little faster while still trying to keep my heart rate down as close as possible to the recommended rates.

Also if I want to run a faster marathon than 2:45 I'll have to up the mileage, add a couple more sessions a week at the lower level effort range. Knowing myself, I need to be running between 100, to 160kms a week if I'm to handle the last 15k of a fast marathon so I will add runs as I need to get me up to those kind of Ks just being careful not to run them all too fast and put myself into over training mode which I'm susceptible to do.

I might even do one of my fast sessions downhill, ala Hosaka, in order to save my legs and increase my rate of recovery. I'll be a bit smarter this time and not so obsessive. like tonight I had a hard, long day at work and now it is pissing rain, cold and windy. I normally would run in this but actually don't feel like it and can't see the benefit of simply running to log the mileage. I'll run hard when I have to and relaxed most of the time, and never when I don't feel like it. This will keep me feeling like it more often than not and I'm sure that this is a recipe for PBs and a long running life. I have learnt that just like in a race I have to "let the pace/race come" to me.

NEXT RACES

Followers

QUOTES

"No one would have crossed the ocean if he could have gotten off the ship in the storm"

Charles Kettering

"Do not be too moral, you may cheat yourself out of much life. Aim above morality. Be not simply good, be good for something."

Henry David Thoreau

“We act as though comfort and luxury were the chief requirements of life, when all we need to make us happy is something to be enthusiastic about.”

Charles Kingsley

"Happiness is different from pleasure. Happiness has something to do with struggling and enduring and accomplishing."

George Sheehan

"Be who you are and say what you feel because those who mind don't matter and those that matter don't mind."

Dr. Seuss

"In case you haven't been keeping track of current events, we just got our asses kicked."

Soldier, from the movie Aliens.

"Suffering is the sole origin of consciousness."

Dostoyefsky

"Running is the most universal sport on the planet. Every able bodied human being has competed in a running race. There has, and always will be, running. Running is even more universal than sex, more universal than any other accomplishment, more universal than any language, art or music genre. The best runners in the world are the ultimate human beings. "

Sean Williams

“Believe in yourself, know yourself, deny yourself, and be humble.”

John Treacy

"What do we live for if not to make life less difficult for each other?"

Roger Bannister

"You manage what you measure"

old management adage

"A quality shoe cushions the foot. It helps absorb against the impact of an unforgiving terrain. It also provides support against ankle roll, ruptured Achilles. And in some instances……….. Death!"

"Coach" Rick Hoffman

"That man is the richest whose pleasures are the cheapest"

Henry David Thoreau

"There are no limits, there are only plateaus, and you must go beyond them"
Bruce Lee

Magazine Covers

From top to bottom:

Emi and I, my youngest son, (now grown up a bit), my Japanese niece, myself (still not grown up at all), the family, my eldest son (now grown up a bit).

SELF HELP

"Without knowing it, you may be ascribing to other people the feelings you are experiencing yourself. Because you hate yourself, you think other people hate you. This is known as projection. sometimes of course other people really do hate you. This is known as hatred. There is not much you can do about it. You're probably just the sort of person that people hate."

Road Rage

"To avoid succumbing to road rage, close your eyes and imaging you are lying in a beautiful meadow on a summer's day. Touch the blades of grass. Smell the wild flowers. See the butterflies flitting past.

Hear the sound of tearing metal as you drive into the car in front of you."

Victim

"You are a victim because you believe you don't deserve any better. It doesn't always have to be this way. Let somebody else be a victim for a change. Next time you're walking down a busy street, push somebody else under a bus and shout, 'look a victim, and it's somebody else!'

Deal with any residual guilt feelings by using Reiki healing techniques."

The inner core

"Lie down in a grassy park and relax completely. Close your eyes. Access your deep inner core by listening to your breathing. After a few minutes, you will find yourself suffused by a feeling of warmth.